Consultation on Spending and Council Tax
The council needs to reduce its spending as part of the national effort to balance the public finances. Over the next five years we estimate that we will have to make £90 million of savings. Currently the annual budget is £338 million.
More than £55m of the savings will be made by increased efficiency so money is saved without affecting the quality of services. The remaining savings will need to come from service reductions.
We need your help to decide where savings can be made and what we should do about council tax rates.
The questionnaire at the link below is an important opportunity for you to tell us your priorities before the council makes its final decisions on spending early next year.
As part of the consultation process a series of three workshops have also taken place with a representative sample of residents. The results from these are currently being analysed and will be considered together with the results from the survey when Councillors finalise their spending plans for 2011/12 and future years in February. The findings from the consultation process will be made available on this page in the New Year.
Key facts on the main areas of spend
- We spend £59m on children and young people and pay for school improvement services, youth service and 300 children in care.
- We spend £51m on highways and transport and maintain 4000 km of road, 3000km of pathways and bridleways, 61,000 street lights and subsidise 82 bus routes.
- We spend £29m on waste management and operate 14 recycling and household waste sites and manage (through disposal or recycling etc.) 320,000 tonnes of household waste per year.
- We spend £125m on adult social care supporting 12,300 older people, people with disabilities and those with mental health issues. Services including residential care, homecare, meals, equipment and adaptations, day services and supported living.
- We spend £11m on libraries, museums & arts and the records office and provide 52 libraries and 5 museums. 50% of the people of Leicestershire use our libraries with 4.1m items lent.
- We also receive direct funding of £350m to fund more than 280 schools and over 90,000 pupils. The County Council has no control over schools funding as it comes from central government and is passed on directly to schools. For this reason schools funding is not included in this consultation.
In addition to the budgets set out on the consultation questionnaire there are management and support service budgets including areas such as Finance, IT and Human Resources. Large reductions are already being made in these support service budgets, with 30% efficiency savings underway. Other budgets excluded from the questionnaire are either small or are not possible to cut, such as capital financing.
Every 1% increase in council tax raises £2.4m extra income for the county council to spend on services. Online questionnaire
Please complete our consultation on spending and council tax questionnaire.
A paper copy of the questionnaire will also be available in the next edition of the council’s magazine, Leicestershire Matters, which will be delivered in mid-November.
The deadline for responses is December 6th.
If you have any queries regarding the survey please email: budgetconsultation@leics.gov.uk